nightmare in e minor

Before the office proper is a waiting room; two old, soft chairs, a coffee table bearing an orderly selection of magazines, and a lamp with an off-white shade. Definitely right on the old-person front. No sign of a cat, but, then again, they wouldn’t let it in the waiting room; people might be allergic.

I sit down, pick up one of the magazines, and flip through it, absorbing nothing of its contents.

My mother dropped me off punctually; why doesn’t the therapist call me into the office? How long am I going to have to wait out here, alone? For a split second I regret not asking my mother to accompany me inside, but of course that’d only make things worse in the long run. She’d try and dictate the entire therapy session, most likely, or at least slip some hint to the therapist regarding what we ought to talk about.

There are three doors leading out of the waiting room. First, the one I came in by. Second, one standing slightly ajar, the darkened room beyond most likely a bathroom. Third, a door hidden by a curtain; thick, pale blue fabric, hiding all but the bottom couple inches of wood from view. I focus my attention towards this door; listen intently; hear nothing. No sound of human activity on the other side.

My hands have gone clammy; I peel them away from the magazine and tangle my fingers together, clenching, unclenching. Every color in the room is suddenly too vivid. The world has become too solid, its edges defined too sharply. The lamp’s faint electric hum is like an insect buzzing in my ear. I sit up in the chair, back stiffening. I am staring at the blue curtain, which has come so clearly into focus that I swear I could count the threads.

There is a sound suddenly. Another sound. Footsteps. Then: the doorknob behind the blue curtain rattling as it turns. Then: the curtain being pushed aside.

“Patricia?” says the therapist. “Patricia Jacqueline?”

My throat is dry as a bone.

“Yes,” I say, voice rasping on the s, and I get to my feet to meet the therapist’s outstretched hand. She’s much shorter than me; small all over, actually. Not quite as old as I expected, perhaps fifty, with hair somewhere between brown and gray. There are laugh lines all around her eyes, which are deep-set, and her nose is narrow with a sharp point to it. She looks not unlike a sparrow.

“It’s very good to meet you!” she says. “I’m Melinda Banks. You can call me Linda if you’d like.”

I nod and smile blandly out of instinct.

Her office isn’t large; one wall is taken up almost entirely by a sofa, leather, by the looks of it, with a blue blanket (the same color as the curtain) draped across its back. I’ve never been to a therapist that had a sofa in their office. I’d always figured that that was too stereotypical.

The therapist, whose name I’ve already forgotten, bustles about the office like she’s looking for something. I stare straight ahead. I try and listen to my own heartbeat, willing it to do a quicker job of returning to normal.

“Patricia Jacqueline Quinlan,” she says, sounding out the name with relish. “Quite the long name! Do you have a nickname that you go by?”

She’s rifling through papers on her desk.

“Patty? Tricia? Something like that?” She laughs, seemingly to herself. “A lot of possibilities with a name like yours.”

“Jack,” I say.

She glances round at me, startled. “Oh.” And then: “Jack!” As though she’s never heard the name and needs to test it out.

She’s found what she was looking for. A clipboard. Is she going to take notes on me, in front of me? None of my previous therapists ever did that.

“Do you have preferred pronouns, Jack?”

I have to stop and think about it, but find the train of thought too much effort to pursue.

“Whatever,” I say. “Any.”

She sits down in her chair — which looks outlandishly comfortable, but I’ve never met a therapist who didn’t have an outlandishly comfortable chair — and pulls out a pen. I never write in pen. Too permanent.

“So, Jack,” she says. “Where do we begin?”

I don’t like to be asked open-ended questions. They always lead to the same answers in the end; whatever the line of questioning, inevitably we come upon the subject of Luna, and once that topic’s been breached, no therapist will ask me about anything else. This one will get there too, eventually, but I’ve no interest in jumping headlong into the subject.

So instead I shrug noncommittally and turn the question around on her as deftly as I can, asking her what sort of questions she usually begins by asking patients. Whether or not she falls for it, she seems content enough to pursue that path instead.

We waste ten or so minutes with the preliminaries; she asks me about my relationship with my family (tense), whether I have any close friends at present (no), whether I have a history of substance abuse, or take drugs recreationally (no), whether I self-harm (no), whether I’ve been to therapy before (yes) and how many therapists I’ve had previously (two), whether I’m currently on medication (no), and whether I’ve ever been (yes, Zoloft, though I went off it because of the vivid dreams it caused me).

At the last comment, her eyes light up. “The dreams were disturbing you, Jack? Can you tell me a little bit about that?”

Shit. “Well, it wasn’t just that,” I say. “There were other side effects, like… um, lowered sex drive, and it just didn’t make me feel like myself. Besides, it was never very effective in treating my symptoms.”

“And how would you describe your symptoms?”

“Oh,” I say, “just your run-of-the-mill depression and anxiety, I suppose.”

“Mhmm,” she says. “Elaborate.” I do, not even listening to the words I’m rattling off, and she listens patiently, nodding her head at the appropriate moments.

First appointments with therapists are never helpful, but at least they’re predictable. The therapist wants to size you up, to get some idea of what they’re dealing with; given that they have no more than an hour to spend with you, though, they’re never able to do more than scratch the surface. 

Of course, that’s how I prefer it to be. I’ll throw them a bone every now and again; tell them about how I hate my mother, or about how I get panic attacks when I’m left alone for too long. Hell, maybe I'll even bring up the subject of gender. Anything to distract them from the deeper issue. They always find out about the Luna thing in the end, though.

The truth will out, I guess.

She’s there almost as soon as I step outside. I feel her before I see her; that’s usually how it is. My skin starts to prickle like I’m being watched, and then I turn and look and there she is beside me.

“How’s the new therapist?” Luna asks.

Damned if I know, since I barely paid attention to anything she told me. They all say the same stuff, anyhow. “Fine,” I tell Luna.

“No good?” Luna sounds awfully sympathetic. “Or is it too early to tell?”

I don’t answer.

“I’ve never been to a therapist. I’d ask to sit in on one of your appointments, but I feel like that’d be an invasion of your privacy.”

She says that without a hint of irony. I snort and start walking down the path. Mother’s still not here; she must be running late. Or maybe she forgot about me.

Luna trots along behind me. Her legs are a lot shorter than mine. “Jack, wait up.”

I stop at the end of the path and turn to watch her as she catches up to me.

I don’t like to look at Luna, but I always do anyway. She’s as dreadfully compelling to watch as a slow-motion car crash. It isn’t just the way her hair and clothes are always dripping wet, or the way they seem to move sometimes independent of the climate, as if caught in an underwater current. It’s that, when I look at her, I can tell she isn’t there. She isn’t transparent the way ghosts always are in books and such; rather, I see her and don’t see her at the same time, like I’m caught in the space between two overlapping realities.

Luna is half-running towards me, bare feet slapping against the gravel pathway.

Luna is not there, and the pathway is vacant and undisturbed. Luna is dead and in her grave.

Duality.

My mother’s car pulls up just then, and I turn and by the time I’m in the car, Luna is gone. She doesn’t hang around when I’m with other people; she never has. She only shows up when I’m alone.

I can’t stand being alone.

I have my tricks for keeping her at bay. Busying my mind with other thoughts is a good one. Usually, if I’m reading, she doesn’t show up, though there have been plenty of exceptions. I try not to read books that remind me of her, or that I think she’d like. When the story isn’t engaging enough, that’s an issue, too; the minute my mind begins to wander, there she is. TV and movies pose the same problem. Video games, particularly violent ones, are a help; I guess she doesn’t like them. A vast amount of the music I once liked is off-limits now, since if it doesn’t remind me of her, it reminds me of her mother, which in turn reminds me of her.

I study a lot more than I used to. Not only does it distract me from thoughts of Luna, but it keeps my parents off my back. I’ve got a job at the ice cream place on Main Street; the manager loves me because I’m always picking up extra shifts, but he’s got no idea that I only take the extra work to keep myself occupied, to stop myself from thinking about Luna.

Thinking about Luna is like putting out a Welcome mat for her.

“I saw Donna and Matt today,” my mother tells me over dinner, all false cheer. “At the supermarket.”

I don’t know what to say to that. “Oh.”

“Donna asked about you,” my mother continues. “She says she wishes you luck with getting into college.”

“Why were they at the supermarket?” I poke at my green beans with my fork. “Didn’t they move back to the city?”

“I don’t know, Jackie. Maybe they’re in town to visit friends.”

“Have they got friends in town?” I can hear the harsh edge creeping into my voice, but I don’t try and stop it. “Who are they friends with that lives around here? I don’t even know who their friends are.”

“That’s fine talk from you. You haven’t had a friend since you were fifteen years old.”

I can see in her face that she knows she’s gone too far, but I know her well enough to know that she won’t apologize. Whatever. I push back my chair and stand up.

“Where are you going, young lady?”

“Out.” I’m already in the mudroom, taking my bike helmet down from the hook. “You haven’t finished your supper.”

It’s never worth arguing with her. I let the sound of the door slamming be my farewell.

By the time I get back, it’s dark. Dad’s car is in the driveway. I go inside, and there he is eating instant ramen with a fork.

“Hey, Jack,” he says, not taking his eyes off his soup. “Your mother says she wants to talk to you.”

“Where is she?”

He frowns. “I believe she’s taking a shower.”

“Tell her I’m tired and I’m going straight to sleep.”

Dad understands. “Okay. It didn’t sound very serious, though. I’m not sure it’s worth trying to avoid her.”

“I’ve had enough for one day.”

He nods.

I go up the stairs as quietly as I can, skipping the creaky one near the top.

I’m in my room, with the lights off, feigning sleep. And then she’s there — Luna, perched on the end of my bed like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“My mother ran into your parents today,” I tell her.

“Oh,” Luna says.

“Don’t you ever go visit them? Or is it just me?”

“You’re my best friend, Jack.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Luna smiles serenely.

With the lights off, her appearance is even stranger, since it’s dark enough in the room that I shouldn’t be able to discern more than a silhouette. But there she is, in full color, and at the same time, there she isn’t. There is someone in the room; there is no one in the room.

“Does your mother still call you Jackie?”

I roll my eyes, although I don’t know if Luna can tell or not in the dark. Does Luna see at all, anymore? Does she see things the way I see things? “Only all of the time.”

“It’s very rude of her to do that. She knows you don’t like that nickname.”

“You’ve called me Jackie before.”

“Only when I was mad at you,” Luna says dreamily.

I roll over onto my stomach. Maybe if I don’t look at her, she’ll go away.

“Are you going to sleep?” Luna asks. When I don’t reply, she continues. “I’ll watch over you until you wake up, then. I don’t have to sleep anymore, you know. Or,” she muses, as though to herself, “maybe it’s just that I’m always asleep.”

You do not pause for them. You walk the halls like a jailer, knowing that your footsteps echo, knowing they can hear. You try not to listen to the ones that call out (especially not the ones that use the wrong name to call you by, and that’s most of them), and you do not let your footsteps pause, and you walk on. There are no windows on this, the lowest floor; you are down far too deep for that. The passages that you care to travel are lit, but down here only dimly so. It is difficult to discern what the lowest floor looks like, for its architecture shifts around you, blurs in the darkness, becomes nothing; you keep your mind numb to it, lest you recognize anything.

You reach the elevator.

You had not intended to head towards the elevator, but you find yourself drawn in its direction nonetheless; descending so low, into the basement of the house of memories, is difficult, and, though you have only just arrived, you wish to leave.

But you can’t, of course; you descended for a purpose. You walk past the elevator.

There is one particular corridor, here on the lowest floor, which you pass by often but which you rarely venture any great distance down. It is a central corridor, so passing through it is near-unavoidable, but you do not like to visit it any more than you have to.

Today, you have to.

The portion of this corridor which is lighted is quite bright, one of the brightest things in the basement. It is so bright that you can quite clearly see the writing etched deep into the walls, the story you have told so many times to explain the existence of this corridor in your house of memories. The language is simple, emotionless, and the walls are otherwise bare. The light streams down from fixtures above, pale and bright and cold.

Many smaller corridors split off from this central one, but you have no interest in them today; you are headed for the end of this corridor. As you walk, the lights grow dimmer, the words carved into the walls become harder to read.

You have brought a torch with you. You pause, as briefly as you can, to light it.

The very end of the corridor is completely dark. Bearing your torch before you, you advance, slow, steady, the sound of your shoes against the floor echoing loud.

At the end is a single door. It is bolted shut. Bolted shut. Bolted shut. You have to check several times to be sure no bolts have come loose. There are many bolts.

The door is thick iron, heavy and imposing, with a thin gap separating it from the floor, and you hear his voice come snaking out from under it.

He says, “You missed me.” He says, “No, you didn’t. You’ve come here to hurt me again. What more could you want?” and you hear the greedy whine in his tone when he says want and you do not want to think about what he’s thinking about.

At the sound of his voice, the lights above you begin to hum and to flicker on, dimly. You press your hands to your face. Cover your eyes.

He calls you by the wrong name and he says you’re beautiful, but it’s the same tone of voice he used when he called you a bitch and you know he can’t see you, anyway, and you’re glad of it.

He says, “Aren’t you going to say something to me?”

No, you think, you don’t deserve my words.

You aren’t sure what brought you here, to him; maybe some desire to confirm it for yourself that it had really been that bad, maybe a reminder of why all the bolts are on the door. You do not intend to speak to him. You will leave soon and it will be as though you never came down.

You see his fingers slip under the edge of the door (it seems to you that the gap has suddenly grown wider) and you see them scrabble against the floor, trying to reach you. You imagine stomping down hard on his fingers, maybe breaking them if you’re lucky, but then you think of all the satisfaction he’d get from that and you don’t.

He must be lying on the floor, to be doing this. Powerless, all splayed out in the cold stone of his chamber. Trying in vain to reach you, to touch you again. He cannot reach you. He cannot reach you. He cannot reach you.

The light is growing brighter. Raising your eyes from the floor, you can see the carvings all over the walls, senseless language spewed out into the stone. The words overlap each other so thickly that they render each other meaningless.

He cannot hurt you anymore. The door is padlocked, and padlocked again, and again, and again. You will never, ever let him out.

You turn to go. He calls after you as he hears your footsteps, but his voice is weaker now and the lights are dimming as you leave and the torch you bear is flaring hot and angry and alive, and you walk as fast as you can without running, without showing fear, because you are not afraid.

You have locked your fear away, too.

The elevator returns you to the upper levels of the house, to the rooms lit by natural light, sunlight, with windows facing out into the new day, with no prisoners locked up but instead guests to be visited, beautiful sights and smells and sounds. It is hard to believe that this is all the same building, that deep below in the depths of this palace he is still lurking, still living.

“There it is,” my mom says. “Isn’t it lovely?” 

My mom has said the exact same thing several times about our new house, but she sounds genuine every time, as if the thought is just occurring to her. My dad comes up behind her and puts his arm around her waist — she’s taller than him, so the position is awkward, but he’s plenty accustomed to it — and I join them on my dad’s other side, so as not to be left out.

The movers have arrived before us, and are busy trying to fit our couch through the narrow front door. My dad, always eager to be helpful, breaks the group hug to approach them, and I zone out, looking at the new house.

I know it well enough by now, having visited several times when we were deciding whether to buy, and afterwards when deciding what would go where. My bedroom is on the second floor, two of its windows facing out onto the street and a third facing the side yard. I’d wanted a view of the backyard, but the master bedroom got that view, of course. It’s the view most worth having.

Behind the house, past the boundaries of our backyard (which had once been fenced in, but most of the fence now slumps at odd angles, all peeling white paint and rotting wood), the land extends flatly on before springing up abruptly into forest, huge old trees left undisturbed by whoever had first settled the town hundreds of years ago. Further beyond that are rolling hills, bearing a certain majesty about them that makes me think they must have been mountains once before time wore them away.

I was glad to be moving, but not because of the new house. I was glad to be moving because of the woods beyond the house, and the hills beyond the woods.

“Erika?” Mom’s voice. “Are you coming inside?”

She’s standing in the doorway. I make sure to go in ahead of her, knowing that Dad must be already inside helping the movers with the couch. I don’t want to be either the first or the last to enter the new house.

The door remains open to let the movers come and go, and through the open door I catch a glimpse of the kid again. Still on the steps. Still staring. Our eyes meet for an instant, and I tear my gaze away quickly, not wanting anything weird to happen.

The first time I noticed someone staring at me, I was five years old. Since then, it’s happened more times than I can count.

Many of the details are no longer clear in my mind — and my parents, who were with me that day, can’t help me recall it as they don’t seem to remember it at all — but I remember it was a warm day in early spring, when the trees were still bare, and my parents and I were walking to the local park when I noticed the starer. Another kid, but several years older than me, and riding a bike down the sidewalk on the opposite side of the street. He was riding very slowly, front wheel of the bike tottering uncertainly over the uneven sidewalk, and he was staring.

I remember stopping in my tracks — startling my parents, who were each holding one of my hands as they walked either side of me — and making brief eye contact with the boy, who, as if on cue, toppled off his bike and into the street.

From then on, the memory becomes blurry. I remember my dad dropping my hand, and I think he must have run across the street to try and help the fallen cyclist, because I remember a car horn blaring and my mother shrieking, but I recall nothing else except a sudden, alarming feeling of being caught in the midst of something — like a fly caught in a web — and an overwhelming amount of incoherent noise. The memory feels, at that point, like a badly tuned radio trying to pick up a station in vain, only to play back jumbled sound and static.

Afterwards, I was distraught. I recall crying, back at home, saying it was my fault that the boy fell off his bike. My parents had asked me why. “My hair,” I remember saying. “He was staring at my hair.”

My hair is a deep, inky violet, verging on black but still distinctly purple. In the sun, its unnatural hue becomes more noticeable. I have had hair this color my entire life.

Most people don’t seem to notice.

“Why would he have been staring at your hair?” my mom had asked me, as if she were genuinely perplexed. When I pointed out my hair’s unusual shade, she just laughed and told me she doubted anyone would notice.

I don’t breach the subject of my hair much with my parents, and they never bring it up on their own; no comments are ever made about it, as if my purple hair is thoroughly unremarkable. My dad told me once that the doctor at the hospital where I was born said that sometimes newborns have odd hair colors, and that I might simply grow out of it. The doctor must have just been saying that in hopes of reassuring my parents (not that they ever seemed worried), because none of it seems to be true. Especially not the growing out of it part. As I’ve grown older, my hair color has, if anything, deepened, turned a more vivid shade of violet.

Most people, again, don’t seem to notice, but from time to time I get a starer. The starers are always strangers, usually young, and I usually spot them in a crowd, not all on their own like the kid outside, though it’s not the first time that’s happened either.

The older I get, the less I’m sure that it’s just my hair they’re staring at. Sure, a five-year-old with purple hair is unusual, but I’m a teenager now, and teenagers dye their hair all the time, right? Surely that alone can’t be what catches their attention. I feel sometimes as though they can see inside me, or like they’re able to see something about me that I myself can’t notice, like how most people don’t seem to notice my hair.

As I go up the stairs of the new house, headed towards my new bedroom, I feel the weight of the kid’s gaze on me still, as if their eyes are burning holes in my back.

My ass hurts. I’ve been sitting on this step for hours.

It had seemed kinda fun, at first, to watch the family across the street move in. That house has been on the market for as long as I can remember (and I haven’t been alive all that long, but I’ve lived across the street from that house the whole time), and when it finally sold, I couldn’t help but feel curious. Made me want to get a look at the new neighbors.

The adults got out of the car first. Married couple; tall white lady with light brown hair in a bun, and her husband, who looked East Asian (Chinese? Japanese?) and was a good six inches shorter than she, and then their kid. Looked about my age, sixteen or seventeen. Long, straight, dark hair. When it caught the light I could see she’d dyed it purple. 

Kid looked in my direction, but not at me. Seemed kinda jumpy. Turned away fast and went to go stand with her parents, who were staring at the house.

The house across the street is nice, don’t get me wrong. It’s a fixer-upper, but not too bad of one. New paint job, new railing on the front porch, some general maintenance. Lawn needs tidying, too, and the fence needs replacing. Beyond that, though, a nice house; two stories plus an attic, wraparound front porch; it’s a bit of a plain Victorian, but a Victorian nonetheless, least I think it is.

I always used to wonder why it didn’t sell, being a nice house and all, but I figure it’s the location. Our street is a dead end; not even a crescent loop, just a regular old dead end. Not fancy enough to get called a cul-de-sac. There’s nothing much immediately nearby, unless you like trees. Some other streets in this town, you at least get a view of the river. Not here.

Kid and her family went inside after a while. She caught my eye on her way in, but looked away quickly, like she’s way shy, and then she was gone. Which brings me back to the first point: my ass hurts. I’ve been sitting for far too long.

I get up and stretch, and as I do so my phone falls out of my pocket. Picking it up, I see I’ve got a missed call. Ramona. Pacing back and forth to stretch my legs out, I call Ramona back.

She answers on the second ring. “Nel?”

“Hey.”

“Nel, I’m really sorry,” Ramona begins, “but I’m not gonna make it over to your place today. It’s my parents. They’re getting on my case about summer reading.”

“Do your parents not know how to have fun?” I look up at the sky. It’s a nice day; bit cloudy, but the cloudless parts of the sky are deep, deep blue. “Tell them it’s still July.”

“I don’t think they’ll listen,” Ramona says, sounding resigned. “You know them. I’ll try and get over there later, okay? Find some other way to entertain yourself in the meantime.”

“Fine,” I say, feigning a wounded tone. “I’m going to hang out with my new next-door neighbor. You'll be sorry when she turns out to be infinitely cooler than your ass.”

“Wait.” Ramona’s interested now. “New neighbor? The house across the street, right?”

“Yeah. They have a kid who looks our age.”

“No kidding. Have you met them yet?”

“Nah. But I was kinda thinking of going over and introducing myself.” This is a lie, as I had no such intentions previously, but it strikes me now as a worthwhile idea.

“Go,” Ramona says. “Make nice with the neighbor. I’m going to read Steinbeck or whatever the assignment was. I’ll call you back.”

“Okay,” I say, and by the time I’ve hung up it’s decided.

The first chance I get, I slip out the back door of the new house, clamber over the fallen-down fence, and head for the edge of the woods. Just for a short walk, just to see for myself. The sun beats down, but not oppressively, and there’s a stillness in the air that makes me feel the universe is holding its breath. I tramp through the tall grass leading up to the woods with an unfocused but powerful sense of purpose.

No wind rustles the branches of the trees today; they stand tall and proud and silent, and once under cover of their leaves I feel compelled to stand still as though I’m a sapling myself. I listen. Water gurgling nearby. A stream?

I head towards the noise, and, yes, it is indeed a stream, a small one no more than a yard across and barely a foot deep in its deeper spots, but a stream regardless. I sit down at its edge, on a mossy rock, and watch the water, imagining I’m part of its current, drifting along a well-worn path with a burbling easiness.

It’s occurred to me, once or twice, to just run for the woods. To get away from everything, but especially my own paranoia. To escape the starers. But I know I couldn’t do that; running away is something characters in books do, and on most days I feel dangerously fictional already.

When you think the universe has its eye on you, you get careful what you do. You get cautious about being a leader or a follower, about standing out and drawing focus, about going places alone, about getting wrapped up in anything that could be dangerous. I know running away is just another thing that could put me in danger, but, even so, I can’t seem to stop my thoughts from drifting there sometimes.

“Hey,” says a voice behind me, and I nearly fall off my rock.

It’s the starer. The one from earlier, the kid. Standing not five feet from me.

“Hey,” I say to the girl who just moved in across the street, and she nearly topples over in surprise. I feel kinda bad about that, and I reach out my arm like to say she can grab onto it for balance, but she doesn’t. Instead, she shies away, like she’s actually some wild woodland animal.

“Sorry,” I say. “Didn’t mean to spook ya. I just wanted to come say hi. I’m Nel. I live across the street.”

The kid opens and closes her mouth like a confused fish before managing to get the words out. “How did you find me?” Nice voice, lower than I expected.

“Asked your folks,” I say. “They said you might be out here. You like nature?” I glance around at the trees, halfheartedly feigning interest in them. “Be careful this time of year, though, you’ll get Lyme disease.”

She gazes at me wordlessly.

“Sorry,” I say again. “I didn’t mean to catch you off guard. I know this is weird.”

“Yeah,” she says, nodding, but not looking like she blames me for it. “It’s just… never mind. I was surprised to see you.” After a pause, she adds, “I saw you earlier. You were sitting on the front steps of your house.”

My turn to nod, since there’s not much to say to something like that.

“Anyway,” I venture after a silence, “just thought I’d say hi. Since we’re neighbors now. What’s your name?”

“It’s Erika.” I pronounce it the American way, hard r, like the kids at school always did. “And you’re… Nel, right? That’s what you said?”

“Yep,” the starer says. “Nice to meet you. ‘Case I didn’t say that before.”

Suddenly conscious that I’m still sitting, I get to my feet. “Likewise.”

Not that it is nice to meet the starer; not that it could ever be nice to meet one of the people who have been watching me for some unknown reason my entire life. Not that it is, in any way, nice to know that one of them is going to be living across the street from me now. I knew I’d had a bad feeling about moving — it always spelled the beginning of something for the people in books, and it often meant trouble — but I’d quashed the unease at the prospect of getting to live near the woods again. I should have trusted my instincts.

None of them have ever approached me before. I was always worried that they would, like the boy on the bike years ago, seem to be triggered into some odd sequence of events if they were to approach me, to make contact. I always kept my distance, tried to avoid looking them in the eye. And all it took was one mistake to undo the years of practiced avoidance.

“I should go,” I say, trying to keep my voice even but hearing the slight tremor in it nonetheless. “Need to help my parents with unpacking. It was nice meeting you.”

I turn and walk away, as fast as I can without seeming overly hasty.

“Hey, wait up,” the starer calls after me. I can hear their footsteps behind me, gaining fast on mine. “Do you need help unpacking? Anything like that?”

“No thanks!” I use the cheeriest tone I can muster. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you around, right?” And for an instant I wonder if I’ve said the wrong thing; if this counts as an invitation for them to keep looking for me.

“Sure.” The kid falls into step beside me. We’re near the same height; they’re shorter than me, but only by an inch or so. As we reach the edge of the woods, they fall out of step, turn to me, give a little wave.

“See you ‘round,” they say.

I watch them as they walk across my new backyard, nimbly hop the fence, and disappear out of sight in the direction of their own house. Just across the street.

The second I’m up in my new bedroom, I pull the curtains closed. It’s occurred to me that the starer’s room may be on the second floor facing the street, as well, and that they could be able to see me from their room. No way in hell I’m letting that happen.

It’s a few minutes before I start to calm down, to think rationally again. What basis do I have for the paranoia, the conspiracy theories? What have the people who stare ever done to me besides stare? Certainly none of them have ever approached me, not like the kid (Nel, I remind myself, they have a name) today. Perhaps it was nothing more than an ordinary stranger’s curiosity.

Perhaps I’m going crazy.

“Erika,” I say out loud to myself, pronouncing my first name the right way, with a Japanese r, “let’s go over the facts. Somebody across the street made eye contact with you. They wanted to say hi. They came and found you in the woods. That isn’t so weird. You’re being paranoid again.”

The worst paranoia I’ve had in years. I can feel it draining from my body now, but slowly, and with the sense of a retreating shoreline, as if it plans to form itself into a wave and crash back down upon me.

“So anyway,” I say to Ramona, “I said hi to her. She didn’t stick around too long, though. Said she had to help her folks unpack.”

“Well, you know,” Ramona says dryly, leaning back against my bedroom wall, “she did just move today, Nel.”

“Hey, did I say I blamed her?” I plop down next to her on my bed. “It was kinda weird she took off so fast, that’s all. She’s kinda jumpy.”

Ramona shrugs. “Maybe she’s just shy. Anyway, you’ll probably get to know her sooner or later. She does live right across the street.”

“Yeah,” I say. “That she does.”

We’re both silent for a while, and then Ramona says, “I’m not gonna lie, though, it seems pretty weird to me that you went out of your way so much to talk to that girl. I’ve never known you to be very outgoing.”

“I guess it is weird. She just seemed kind of interesting, you know? It felt like the right thing to do.”

“She caught your eye, or something?”

I remember meeting Erika’s eyes from across the street, and I remember how quickly she’d looked away, like the contact stung.

“Well, we can’t just stare at one another forever,” the purple-haired girl says evenly.

“Duh! We gotta find some way to get out of here!” The redhead with the goatee makes a nervous, incoherent gesture with his hands, as if to illustrate his words. “There’s totally got to be some way to escape, right?”

“Of course! I apologize for not suggesting this earlier!” Ishimaru looks caught somewhere between fear and embarrassment. He’s blinking too fast, and Junko wonders if he’s going to cry.

“We’ve got to find whoever’s behind this,” Mukuro says — her hand, still clutching Junko’s, is shaking with anger — “and make them pay for what they’ve put us through.”

“Um, but first,” Fujisaki pipes up, “shouldn’t we check out those Electronic Student ID cards that Monobear left for us?”

All eyes turn to the box sitting next to the podium.

“He said there was a list of rules,” Fujisaki continues, “so maybe we ought to look at them before we do anything else?”

Several heads nod in agreement. Ishimaru, seeming relieved to have something to do, quickly retrieves the box and sets it down in the middle of the gymnasium.

No one is too eager to approach the box; the atmosphere is too tense for any of the students to feel comfortable being in close proximity to one another as they dig through the box to find their ID cards. In the end, Ishimaru and Naegi end up distributing most of them.

Junko’s own card must have been somewhere near the bottom, because it’s a while before Ishimaru retrieves hers. In the meantime, she watches as the others’ cards are distributed.

“Ikusaba-san? This one is yours.” Naegi holds out the ID card to Mukuro, and she lets go of Junko’s hand to take it. Junko sees the way Mukuro’s fingertips scrabble against Naegi’s palm as she curls her hand around the device, sees the strangely charged look that passes from Naegi to Mukuro once her hand pulls away.

Then he’s gone, calling out to the next student. “Kirigiri-san? Here’s your card…”

“I think he likes you,” Junko whispers to Mukuro. Mukuro frowns.

-

Hope’s Peak Academy - Rules

1. Students will live a communal lifestyle for an indefinite period of time within the school.

2. “Night Time” hours are from 10 pm to 7 am. During Night Time, some places are off-limits to students.

3. Sleeping is permitted only in the dormitory rooms. Any student caught falling asleep intentionally outside of the dorms will be punished.

4. You are free to investigate the school freely, and no special restrictions other than those listed are placed on your actions.

5. Violence against the academy’s headmaster, Monobear, is strictly forbidden, as is destroying or tampering with the security cameras.

6. Any student who kills a fellow student shall be allowed to graduate if no one finds out that they are the culprit.

7. Additional rules may be added by the headmaster at any time.

-

“So he can just add new rules whenever he wants?” Junko says loudly. “That’s so lame!”

No one acknowledges her comment. Most of the students are still bent over their ID cards, studying the list of rules they’ve been given. Several faces are pale with shock. A few students, apparently done looking at the rules, are pacing back and forth restlessly. Others look like they’re fighting to keep their entire bodies from shaking; the brown-braided girl in particular looks like she might be on the verge of a nervous collapse.

“What might the consequences for breaking the rules be?” The speaker is the girl clad in goth lolita. “I’d be curious to see what happens to rule-breakers.” A tiny smile plays about her lips, and her crimson eyes gleam.

“You’ve seen the guns by the entrance, haven’t you?” Mukuro snaps. “Doesn’t that give you enough of an idea?”

“Fuck that thing’s rules!” Oowada snarls. “We can’t let it control us that easily!”

“Unfortunately,” Togami says, glancing disdainfully at the gang leader, “at the present time it seems we have little choice.”

“Excuse me, but… is anyone else confused about rule number six?” asks Maizono.

Several students check their ID cards to verify the rule she’s talking about.

“It says that we can graduate if we kill another student, but that we can’t let anyone else find out about the murder?” Maizono casts an anxious glance around the room. “Sorry, I just want to be sure I’m reading this correctly…”

“I believe it means that if a student wishes to graduate, they must commit murder without another student discovering that they’re the culprit,” the purple-haired girl says. “In other words, the crime must remain unsolved.”

“We don’t have to worry about that one!” the boy with the goatee says, speaking much louder than is necessary. “No one’s gonna kill anyone else! It’s all a… stupid joke, or something…”

The room falls into brief, uneasy silence.

“In any case,” the girl with purple hair continues, “I suggest we all split up and search the school.”

“Very well.” Togami turns on his heel. “I’ll be going alone.”

“Why alone?” Naegi questions. “Wouldn’t it be safest to go in groups?”

Togami makes a derisive noise in his throat. “You’re suggesting that I cooperate with one of you? For all I know, you’re already plotting murder.”

“You can’t just say that!” the ponytailed swimmer exclaims.

“You can’t deny the possibility.” Togami isn’t the tallest student in the room, but he manages to give the appearance of looking down on them all regardless. “Isn’t that why all of you are so nervous right now? Because that possibility exists?”

Before anyone can reply, he’s gone.

“That bastard!” Oowada says loudly. “Does he think he can get away with whatever he wants?”

“Never mind him,” Naegi says, eyes darting around the room nervously. “Shouldn’t we all just get into groups so we can go and explore?”

-

The students split up into groups of twos and threes, and, after it becomes clear that Naegi intends to depart with Maizono, Junko gestures to Mukuro to follow her out of the gymnasium.

Once they’re out in the hall, Junko pauses, listening to the footsteps of her new classmates until the sound fades away.

“Muku-chan,” she says, “how long do you think it’ll be before the first murder happens?”

Mukuro’s eyes widen. “What?”

“The way I see it,” Junko continues, “even if just getting to leave isn’t incentive enough, before too long we’ll all go stir-crazy. Someone’s going to end up trying something. They’ll get desperate, and they’ll go after whoever looks like the easiest target.” She pauses. “I’m thinking Fujisaki-san. What do you think?”

Mukuro, eyes still wide, doesn’t answer.

“Oh, come on!” Junko snaps. “You’re supposed to be an amazing soldier, aren’t you? A Super High-school Level Soldier? How come you’re so fucking nervous about death all of a sudden? It’s bullshit!”

She strikes a pose for emphasis; one hand on her hip, the other pointing in an accusatory manner at her sister. Accusatory in a cute, fashionable way, of course.

“It’s not that I’m scared by our current situation,” Mukuro says. “I can handle any attempts on my life. Knowing my talent, no one should peg me for an easy target, anyway.” She pauses. Her expression has gone blank, perfectly composed, and it annoys Junko to no end. What sort of boring person would want to hide their emotions like that?

“What does alarm me,” Mukuro continues, “is that this is even happening at all.” Her eyes meet Junko’s, and the emotionless façade cracks enough for Junko to see the anxiety in her gaze. “Something’s really wrong here, Junko. I just have a gut feeling about it. Don’t you?”

Junko frowns. “No. You’re overreacting, Mukuro-chan. Sure, it’s plenty weird and all — it’s fiendish, even! It’s totally twisted! It’s like something out of a horror story, you know, getting locked in a school and told to kill people! But we’ll be okay. You can protect yourself, and I know you’d protect me, too.”

“Okay,” Mukuro says. “Okay.” She nods, a bit too vigorously. “You’re right, Junko. Whatever’s going on, the two of us can get through it.”

Her eyes meet Junko’s again as she smiles, and Junko feels a sudden rush of affection for her twin, a sudden desire to pull her into a hug and tell her that she loves her, but she doesn’t act on it.

-

They’ve just started to head off to explore when they hear footsteps pattering behind them, and suddenly Naegi’s there, clearly out of breath from trying to catch up.

“I got worried,” he says. “Maizono-san and I didn’t see you when we were looking around, and we saw just about everyone else, and then I got to thinking that something bad might have happened already…”

He trails off, eyes downcast bashfully.

Junko giggles. “Naegi-kun, you’re so silly! Of course we’re fine. Where’s Maizono-san, anyway?”

“She went to investigate the dorms. I told her I was going to go and try and find you.” Naegi goes slightly pink. “I just got worried about you guys. Sorry.”

“No worries!” Junko says cheerily. “Do you want to walk with us?”

He looks taken aback. “You’d really like to have someone like me accompany you? I’m not any good at investigating things. I don’t even have a real talent.”

“You’ve got to be good at something!” Junko insists. “Hey — I know what you’re good at, Naegi-kun! You seem to know a lot about our classmates. You knew about Ishimaru-kun and Yamada-kun and Togami-kun, and… hey, how come you know Maizono-san, anyway?”

“She went to school with me,” Naegi says, “but we weren’t friends or anything. I just knew who she was, because, well…” He shrugs, as if to say that there’s no need to explain further, and there isn’t. Even back in her junior high years, Sayaka Maizono was famous.

“How do you think she knows you, then, if you weren’t friends?” Mukuro asks.

Naegi looks taken aback. “Um, I… I have no idea.”

“What about that goth loli?” Junko asks. “Who’s she?”

“Oh, her? That’s Celestia Ludenberg. She’s a gambler.”

Junko tries to sound out the unfamiliar name and fails. “She is Japanese, isn’t she?”

“I think so.”

“Do you know her real name, Naegi-kun?”

He shakes his head.

“I’ve heard of her,” Mukuro says suddenly. “She’s ‘The Queen of Liars,’ isn’t she? Isn’t that what they call her?”

Naegi nods. “Yeah, um… she’s an amazing gambler. They say she never loses.” His small shoulders hunch, and he wraps his arms around himself briefly before letting go. “They say she’s ruined lives. Taken people for everything they own, you know.”

“She’s someone to watch out for,” Junko decides. “A person like that could kill at any minute! Don’t you think?”

Mukuro interrupts. “Who’s the one with the long brown braids?”

“That’s Touko Fukawa, the author. She wrote… um, it was called ‘Before the Sea’s Scent Fades Away,’ I think.”

“Was that the book about the fisherman?” Junko asks. “The one where the girl and her fisherman lover do the—”

Mukuro holds up her hands. “I get it, I get it.”

“The redhead?” Junko asks, changing the subject.

“Leon Kuwata,” Naegi says. “Famous baseball player.”

“That’s Leon Kuwata?” Junko isn’t much of a baseball fan, but she does recall some sort of baseball prodigy being talked about on the news and such; the boy in question had been clean-shaven, though, with close-cropped hair. “He looks totally different!”

Naegi shrugs. “I didn’t recognize him either at first. He came over to talk to me and Maizono-san. He said something about how he wants to become a musician… maybe that’s why he’s changing his image?”

Junko, having already lost interest in Leon Kuwata, changes the subject again. “The girl with the brown ponytail is a swimmer, right?”

“Yes. That’s Aoi Asahina.”

“I’ve never heard of her,” Mukuro says.

“She’s really famous,” Naegi tells her. “She has loads of fans. She’s a big deal on the internet, too, because she’s such an incredible swimmer.”

“I bet it’s because she’s really cute, too,” Junko adds. “I bet she looks amazing in a swimsuit! Especially because she’s so big-chested — don’t you think so, Naegi-kun?”

He goes pink. “Um, I hadn’t thought about it like that…”

“Liar,” Junko says happily. “Who’s that girl with the purple hair?”

Naegi opens his mouth as though to reply, but then closes it again, his blush deepening. “I… actually don’t know.”

“Not even her name?” Junko presses.

“I don’t know anything about her. I couldn’t find anything about her online. Not even a photo.”

“Do you think she’s like you?” Mukuro asks Naegi. “No talent, I mean.”

“Don’t be stupid.” Junko rolls her eyes at her twin. “They wouldn’t let in two nobodies without talents, Mukuro-nee. No offense!” she adds brightly to Naegi.

She wonders if he will take offense, and watches his face carefully. His expression doesn’t change, though, and Junko feels an inexplicable twinge of disappointment.

-

“Well, we can’t break down the doors,” Asahina announces.

The students of Hope’s Peak Academy have gathered in the cafeteria. Several hours have passed since they began their search for a way out; Junko instinctively digs in her pocket for her cell phone, forgetting momentarily that it had vanished sometime between her arrival at Hope’s Peak and the blackout she had suffered in the entrance hall.

Oogami inclines her head gravely. “Despite my best efforts, the door sealing us in remains undamaged. ’Tis clear that not even one as strong as I can destroy it.”

“Obviously not,” Mukuro says under her breath. “That bulkhead is made of iron.”

“No one in the world could break down that door,” Naegi says. When Junko glances at him, he blinks up at her, startled. “Well, it’s true! Oogami-san’s the strongest person in the world! If she can’t get us out,” he continues, speaking as if to himself again, “nobody can get us out.”

“We’ve got plenty of food,” tiny Fujisaki pipes up. “So we won’t have to worry about that for a while, anyway.”

“I have fortunate news!” Ishimaru announces, clearly trying his hardest to sound upbeat. “There are private rooms assigned to each one of us in the dormitories! We have even been provided with labeled keys!”

“The rooms are also soundproof,” Mukuro says. “Naegi-kun, my sister, and I tested that together.”

She still seems a little subdued, Junko notes. Poor Muku-chan. She’s used to combat, but this sort of trap must have taken her off-guard as much as it had the rest of them.

“Hey, did anyone figure out how to get to the second floor?” Kuwata wants to know.

Oogami shakes her head. “The stairways in both the school and dormitory areas are blocked by shutter gates. Asahina and I could find no way of opening them.”

“I checked all the windows,” Kuwata says, “but they’re all sealed shut. Couldn’t get any of those metal plates off.”

“Has anyone seen that goddamn bear?” asks Oowada.

Fujisaki nods. “Um, when I was checking how much food we had, he showed up and told me he’s going to replenish the food whenever we run low. That’s why I don’t think we have to worry about that. Not right now, at least…” She trails off. 

“Where’d he go after that?”

“I don’t know.” Fujisaki sounds apologetic. “He moves too fast. Far too sophisticated for a remote-controlled toy,” she adds. “At least, any that I’ve ever seen.”

“Togami-kun,” Naegi asks, “did you find anything?”

Togami looks witheringly at the smaller boy. “If I had anything of significance to report, I would have already done so.”

Naegi seems unfazed by Togami’s rudeness. “Fukawa-san? What about you?”

“Huh?” Fukawa, who’s been standing off to the side of the group, twitches at the sound of her name. “N-no one invited me to investigate with them… I was l-left on my own…”

“Well, that’s not entirely true, is it?” Celes smiles prettily. “I remained in the gym as well. Investigations aren’t really my style.”

“What the hell were you thinking?” Mukuro snaps. “We need as many people to gather information as we can get.”

“Hey, let’s not get upset, ‘right?” The speaker is the boy with the afro — Yasuhiro Hagakure, famous fortune-teller, according to Naegi. “We should try and stay calm, y’know?”

“Indeed.”

The girl with the purple hair has just entered the cafeteria. Junko hadn’t even noticed her absence earlier. 

“Kirigiri-kun!” Ishimaru exclaims. “You’re extremely tardy! This meeting started quite some time ago! Where have you been?”

So Ishimaru must have asked her her name, Junko thinks. Perhaps he had a chance to speak to her during the investigation. Or perhaps he’d read it off a student roster.

Kirigiri crosses to the table they’ve all gathered around and pulls out a sheet of paper, laying it silently on the tabletop.

“What’s that?” Naegi asks.

“Floor plans for this academy,” Kirigiri says.

“Where did you get—”

Mukuro interrupts. “So what? Do those plans tell us anything useful?”

“Unfortunately,” Kirigiri says, “these plans are only for the first floor. They seem mostly consistent with the building we’re in, meaning we probably aren’t inside some elaborate duplicate of the real Hope’s Peak. But there seem to be a number of odd alterations.”

“Alterations?” Naegi echoes.

“Like I said,” Kirigiri continues, her gaze meeting Naegi’s for the first time, “it is unfortunate that I could not find plans for the other floors.”

“What’s going on here?” Yamada, who’s been quiet until now, suddenly cuts in, his voice high-pitched and panicky. “Where are all the other students? Why are we trapped in here?”

Hagakure frowns. “Don’t be so gloomy, dude. It’s just initiation, ‘right? Nothing worth getting all worried about.”

“Do you really think that’s true?” Kuwata asks, sounding strangely small.

Celes titters quietly to herself.

“If we’ve confirmed one thing in the course of this investigation,” she says, “it’s that we most certainly are trapped here. There is no possible means of escape. Other than, of course, seeking graduation, as Monobear explained to us.”

Fukawa lets out a distressed whimper and buries her face in her hands.

“So what do we do?” Kuwata asks, his voice cracking on the last syllable. “What do we do?”

Silence hangs in the air, as heavily as it had earlier in the gymnasium.

“Simple,” Celes says, once the pause in conversation has grown almost unbearable. “We adapt.”

“What?” asks Asahina.

Celes smiles.

“Just as it is in nature, those who adapt to this new environment will survive. Those who do not—” she inclines her head daintily, as though curtseying “—will not.”

Another muffled whimper comes from Fukawa’s direction. Celes ignores the noise. “Based on this, I have something to suggest.”

“What is it?” Naegi prompts.

“During Night Time hours,” Celes says, “we should keep to our rooms.”

“You want to modify the Night Time rule?” Naegi sounds confused. “But there’s already places we aren’t allowed to go at night.”

“Be that as it may, our movement is unrestricted for the most part. And wouldn’t that just make us paranoid, to think someone might be coming to kill us once the lights are out?” Celes’ smile is back, enigmatic. “Such paranoid thoughts would wear us out swiftly. I propose we agree to remain in our rooms at night. But since this isn’t an official rule, it won’t be enforced; everyone will have to agree to it together.”

“I agree,” Mukuro says hastily. All eyes turn to her, and she stares back, defiant. “Look, that goth loli is right. If we don’t make some rules about how we’re going to live, we’ll never make it through this.”

“On behalf of all students, I approve this rule!” Ishimaru announces.

“Who made you our representative?” hisses Fukawa.

“It appears that’s settled,” Celes says, ignoring Fukawa’s remark. “With that decided, I think I shall retire to my chamber. Night Time is soon.”

Before anyone can object, she sweeps gracefully out of the cafeteria.

“We might as well all head to bed,” Naegi says. “If that’s okay with you, Ishimaru-kun? Since this meeting was your idea, and all.”

“Indeed, it seems best to adjourn for now!” Ishimaru nods. “We should all try to sleep. Unless we’re rested, it will be very difficult to make any progress with our plans to escape!”

Celes’ words echo in Junko’s mind: no possible means of escape. They sound odd, hollow, as though they mean nothing at all. Junko tries to envision living forever inside Hope’s Peak, growing old alongside her new classmates, but it’s as if her mind can’t grasp the idea.

-

The bedrooms all have blue tile flooring and bright pinkish-red walls. The bed is less comfortable than what Junko is used to, but she kicks off her boots and stretches out on the bed all the same.

No way out, she thinks. This is my room now. This is my room forever.

It’s no use; the notion that she’s stuck in Hope’s Peak for the rest of her life refuses to sink in. All Junko can feel is a confused numbness.

Maybe Mukuro-chan had been right earlier when she said something about this situation felt wrong. It’s deeper than just the horror of the day’s events. Something has been wrong ever since she first regained consciousness in Hope’s Peak. Something feels missing.

Mukuro catches her wrist. “Don’t.”

“Aww.” Junko pouts, pulling her hand away. “Why’d you stop me, sis?”

“See those?” Mukuro Ikusaba points towards the ceiling, where a pair of multi-lensed security cameras hang like wasp’s nests on either side of the door. Beneath each camera is a dark, double-barreled mass of metal.

“Guns?”

Mukuro nods. “We don’t know what sets them off. Be careful.”

Junko frowns, twirling a piece of her long blonde hair around her finger.

“Junko…” Mukuro hesitates, her blue eyes anxious. “What do you think is going on here?”

“Huh?” Junko flashes a sunny smile at her twin. “Don’t look so worried! I bet the upperclassmen are just playing a prank on us.”

“But when we entered the school this morning, the bulkhead wasn’t there.”

Junko waves a hand dismissively. “Hope’s Peak Academy can do anything! Maybe one of us is a Super High-school Level Door Builder.”

Despite the worry still evident in her eyes, Mukuro smiles.

“Um, excuse me?”

Junko turns around to find herself face-to-face with one of her new classmates; a boy, shorter than herself, with untidy brown hair and wide green eyes. Save for his rather abysmal fashion sense — his blazer looks slightly too small, she notes disdainfully, and he’s wearing a hoodie underneath it, of all things — there’s nothing remarkable about him. Certainly he doesn’t look familiar. Strange, Junko thinks; most of her classmates are famous, aren’t they?

The boy goes a peculiar shade of pink under her scrutiny, and she can’t help but feel pleased. “Hi!” she says brightly, flashing her most brilliant smile at him; the same smile that’s graced the cover of countless magazines since her rise to stardom. “Were you looking for somebody?”

He bites his lower lip. “Not exactly, but… um, sorry to interrupt, but we’re all meeting in the gymnasium. Right now. I think it might be kind of important.”

“No problem!” Junko beams at him, purely to see if he’ll go even pinker in response. He does. “I’m Junko Enoshima, by the way—” he must know who she is, of course, but formalities are formalities “—and this is my sister, Mukuro Ikusaba.” She punctuates this last remark by throwing an arm around Mukuro’s shoulders.

The boy’s eyes dart from Junko’s face to Mukuro’s and back again.

“I’m Makoto Naegi,” he says. “Pleased to meet you!” And he sounds it.

-

“But what about the guns?” Mukuro asks. She speaks quietly, hoping only her sister will hear her.

“I don’t know!” Junko snaps back. “You worry too much, Mukuro-chan. Everything’s fine.”

Ignoring the hurt look on her sister’s face, she skips forward to catch up with Naegi, who’s walking a few paces ahead of her. “Hey, Naegi-kun! What’s your Super High-school Level talent, anyway?”

“Ah, well…” Naegi comes to a halt, looking down at the ground bashfully. “The truth is, I don’t really have any sort of special talent.”

“Huh? Then how did you—”

“Good luck,” Naegi says. He meets her gaze head-on for the first time, expression sincere. “I won a random ‘good luck’ scholarship. Every student in the country was entered, and Hope’s Peak Academy picked me.”

“You’re joking,” Junko says, incredulous. “Why would Hope’s Peak be letting in untalented nobodies? This is the most elite institution in Japan.”

“Forgive my sister,” Mukuro cuts in. “She doesn’t mean to be so rude.”

Junko shoots a glare at her twin. “I’m just saying! There must be some reason they let you in, Naegi-kun. Maybe you’ve got some secret talent, you know. Something even you don’t know about.”

Naegi’s brow furrows, and he shakes his head. “No… no, I don’t think so. I’m completely untalented.” He shoves his hands deep into his pants pockets, shoulders hunching slightly. “There’s really nothing special about me.”

Before Junko can reply, the noise of an electronic school bell peals through the air, chiming four times. A sudden discharge of static follows, and, to their left, a TV monitor near the ceiling flicks on. The display shows nothing but static for several seconds.

“Ah— ah— mike test, mike test!”

The voice is high-pitched and cheerful, and Junko is hit with a strong feeling of having heard it before; long ago, maybe, and in some different context. She glances at Mukuro, who’s staring at the monitor, mouth hanging slightly open. The monitor is still displaying static, but most of the center of the screen is completely dark — like a silhouette.

“This is an announcement!” the voice continues. “All new students, please gather in the gymnasium. This year’s entrance ceremony is about to begin. All new students!”

“Junko,” Mukuro says, voice shaking slightly, “what the hell is going on here?”

Junko elbows her. “Calm down.”

“And with that,” the cheery voice from the monitor continues, “I welcome you all!”

The monitor goes dark, the static noise cutting out with it.

“Well, it looks like you were right about us having to meet in the gym, Naegi-kun!” Junko says merrily. “It sounds like Hope’s Peak is planning something special for us! Isn’t that exciting?”

Naegi doesn’t answer. Junko notices that he’s trembling, pupils dilated wide as he stares off into space.

“What’s with you two? You’re such killjoys!” Junko rounds on Mukuro, annoyed. “Muku-chan, you’re a soldier. A member of Fenrir! Don’t tell me you got scared of some stupid school announcement!”

Mukuro takes a deep breath and squares her shoulders. “I’m not scared. But… Junko, doesn’t something about this feel wrong to you?”

“Not really,” Junko says breezily. “Come on, let’s get to the gymnasium. Everyone else must be there already.”

-

Indeed, everyone else is there already. Junko counts under her breath: thirteen new faces, plus herself, Mukuro, and Naegi for a total of sixteen incoming Hope’s Peak students. Of course, many of the faces aren’t new to her; her classmates are all super-talented, after all. Well, she amends silently as she gazes at the brown-haired boy standing next to her, all of them but Naegi-kun, anyway.

“Who’s that girl over there?” Mukuro points across the room. “Purple hair, dark jacket. I don’t recognize her.”

“You’ve been off training for too long and now you don’t know who anyone famous is,” Junko replies absently, not looking at the purple-haired, dark-jacketed girl in question.

Mukuro starts to protest, but her words are cut off by a loud voice.

“Excuse me, classmates! You are all tardy! Such lateness is unacceptable!”

The speaker is a boy in a white uniform, who in an instant plants himself directly in front of them. Junko notes mentally that he has the thickest, most impressive eyebrows she has ever seen.

“It is particularly important to be punctual on the first day of school! To arrive late to a ceremony at such a distinguished institution as this is an outrage!” The boy’s pointer finger swings dramatically from Naegi to Junko to Mukuro and back again in a vain attempt to direct itself at all of them at once.

“It wasn’t our fault!” Mukuro protests, crossing her arms. “Who even are you, anyway?”

The boy immediately straightens into a salute. “My name is Kiyotaka Ishimaru! In life, I value simplicity and fortitude above all else! I believe that all of us Super High-school Level students should study hard, be productive, and strive to do our best this school year!”

Mukuro mutters something nearly inaudible about asking for his name, not his life story.

Naegi leans in towards Junko and Mukuro, speaking quietly. “Ishimaru-kun is renowned for being a model student. He always gets perfect marks in everything, and he doesn't even have a single spot on his record.. yet, anyway. He was on the disciplinary committee at his old school.”

“Oh, I think I’ve heard of him!” Junko turns her attention back to Ishimaru. “Great to meet you! I’m Junko Enoshima, this—” she throws one arm around Mukuro’s shoulders “—is Mukuro Ikusaba, and this—” she throws her other arm around Naegi’s shoulders “—is Makoto Naegi.”

Ishimaru beams at them. “Splendid to meet you all!”

“We should try and meet some of our other classmates,” Naegi suggests. “Um, if you’ll excuse us, Ishimaru-kun?”

“Certainly!” Ishimaru looks suddenly thoughtful. “Though… isn’t it peculiar that the ceremony hasn’t begun yet? It’s already past eight.”

“Why is everyone so worried?” Junko asks loudly. “So what if we’re starting a bit late!”

“It’s best that we meet some of the others first, isn’t it?” Naegi gestures towards the other students, who, for the most part, are milling about the room. Some look nervous; some annoyed; some seem completely unfazed.

“Naegi-kun?” a girl’s voice calls. “Is that really you?”

Naegi starts, looking around for the speaker. She approaches from somewhere in the middle of the crowd, and Junko, with surprise, realizes that this girl is very famous indeed. Sayaka Maizono, leader of a famous all-girl idol group — how could an ordinary boy like Naegi-kun know someone like her? Junko wonders.

“It really is you, isn’t it? Makoto Naegi?” Maizono claps a hand to her mouth. “I can’t believe I’d run into you here! What are the odds of that?”

“Maizono-san?” Naegi blinks at her. “You remember me?”

“Of course I do! You haven’t changed a bit since middle school…” She giggles, then turns to Junko. “Enoshima-san! We’ve never met, but I know who you are, of course. It’s lovely to meet you!”

“Likewise!” Junko says cheerily.

“And… ah, I’m sorry…” Maizono shoots an apologetic look in Mukuro’s direction. “I don’t know your name.”

“Mukuro Ikusaba,” Mukuro replies, a bit stiffly.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you! I’m Sayaka Maizono.”

“I know who you are.”

Maizono politely ignores this last remark. “You’ll forgive me for asking, but… are you two sisters? You look rather alike.”

“Really?” Junko frowns thoughtfully. “I suppose it’s true that we’re the same height, but Muku-chan’s hair looks nothing like mine. And she’s got freckles! Besides, I’ve obviously got the better figure.”

“Yes,” Mukuro says, “we’re sisters.”

“Maizono-san,” Naegi asks, “have you met everyone here already?”

“Just about!” Maizono smiles prettily. “You three got here somewhat late — most of us have been here for a while. Though…” her smile fades, “it’s strange. Everyone I’ve talked to seems to have suffered some sort of fainting spell upon entering the school. We all woke up in various classrooms with no memory of how we got there. Is that true for you three as well?”

“Mukuro-nee and I woke up in the same classroom,” Junko says. “We decided to do some investigating of our own before we came here. We didn’t bump into anyone but Naegi-kun along the way.”

“Excuse me for butting in,” a very plump boy interjects, “but did you also see the metal plates covering the windows?”

“How could we miss them?” Mukuro looks distinctly irritated.

“What do you think that means?” The boy fiddles with his glasses nervously. “And, more importantly… is it to protect us from something without? Or is it to keep us within?”

“You’re Hifumi Yamada, aren’t you?” Naegi asks. “The doujin artist?”

The boy puffs out his chest. “Certainly I am. And you are?”

“Makoto Naegi, and this is—”

“Junko Enoshima, and my sister Mukuro Ikusaba!” Junko finishes for him.

“Junko, I can introduce myself,” Mukuro mumbles.

“An honor to meet you!”

The light glinting off Yamada’s glasses obscures his beady eyes somewhat, but Junko is nearly positive that his gaze is fixed somewhere lower than her face.

“Enoshima Junko-dono, the famous gyaru…” Yamada’s perspiring slightly as he stares at her. “Yes, it really is you. Unmistakably you!”

“Junko-dono?” Mukuro mouths, face caught somewhere between horror and amusement.

Junko is beginning to feel as if she’s had quite enough interaction with her classmates for the time being. “Naegi-kun,” she says, a bit petulantly, “when’s the opening ceremony going to get started already?”

Naegi, who has been fiddling with something in his pocket, shoots her a startled look, just as a familiar voice sounds from the front of the room.

“Is everyone here? Well, then, let’s get started!”

-

“A stuffed bear?” Mukuro says in astonishment, staring at the black-and-white thing that’s standing on the podium.

“It’s cute!” Junko claps her hands together. “I did a photo shoot with plush bears once.”

“I’m no ordinary plush toy!” the bear proclaims. It’s unmistakably the same voice that they’d heard coming from the TV monitor earlier. “I’m Monobear! I’m the headmaster of Hope’s Peak Academy!”

Junko giggles.

“It’s nice to meet you all!” There’s a slight note of mockery in the bear’s tone.

Yamada lets out a noise somewhere between a yell and a squeal. “It talks!”

“Remain calm, classmates!” Ishimaru orders, his voice faltering slightly. “There must be a speaker installed somewhere in the toy, that’s all. There has to be a reasonable explanation for this!”

The plush bear — Monobear, Junko thinks, what a funny name — leans forward on the podium, raising its arms above its head in what is a surprisingly good approximation of threatening anger for a stuffed toy.

“Hey, didn’t you hear me before? I’m not a toy! I’m Monobear! Your new headmaster!”

Yamada lets out another squeal of distress.

A tall, blond-haired boy standing to Junko’s left gives a derisive snort. “Honestly,” he says, looking disdainfully at Yamada, “it’s obvious that this is a remote-controlled machine. A sort of robot. There’s no need for such childish outbursts.”

“You’re not completely wrong about that, Togami-kun,” Monobear says gleefully, “but you’re far from being all the way right! I expect all of you bastards to do better than that in school. Making false assertions about one’s headmaster is a dreadful way to start the school year!”

The smallest of their new classmates, a skinny, shy-looking girl whom Junko recognizes as being the famous programmer Chihiro Fujisaki, raises her hand timidly. “Um, so are you really our new headmaster?”

“Hold on a second,” Mukuro interrupts. Her fists are clenched by her sides in nervous anger. “ ‘You bastards’?! Since when does a headmaster address his students like that?”

“There’ll be plenty of time for questions after!” Monobear waves a stubby, stuffed paw at the assembled students. “Now, it’s time to begin the proceedings. If everyone could please quiet down…”

Indeed, the sixteen newcomers to Hope’s Peak Academy are finding it rather difficult to be quiet. Somewhere near the front of the room, an athletic-looking girl with her hair in a ponytail (Junko can’t remember her name, but recalls vaguely that she’s a swimmer) is talking loudly and animatedly to an enormously muscular girl in a sailor uniform (Junko is certain that this is Sakura Oogami, famous wrestler and quite possibly the strongest person on the planet). Another girl with long brown braids is muttering to herself while chewing nervously at her fingers. Nearby, Yamada continues to make fearful, high-pitched noises, clutching at his chest in shock.

Rather than waiting for them to be quiet, Monobear raises his voice to speak above the hubbub. “Stand! Bow! Good morning, you punks!”

Ishimaru is the only one to bow and return the greeting; most of the other students have only been sent into a heightened state of confused panic by Monobear’s words. Junko, for her own part, feels her heart beating faster than usual, but no fear; only adrenaline.

“To begin today’s ceremony,” Monobear announces, “I’d like to give a short speech. Ahem!” He clears his throat with a distinctly squeaky noise that almost makes Junko burst into giggles again.

“All of you bastards are geniuses, overflowing with hope and talent. You—” he makes a dramatic sweeping gesture with one paw “—are the hope of the nation! The hope of the world! Therefore, in order to preserve and guard this hope that you all have sleeping within you, from now on you will live a communal lifestyle within the walls of this school! Let’s all hope for a wonderful and harmonious life together!”

The chatter has begun to quiet down. All attention in the room is focused on the plush bear, who parades back and forth on top of the podium; first displaying his white side to the students, next his black side.

“In addition,” Monobear continues, “this lifestyle shall continue indefinitely! In other words, you bastards will be spending your entire lives in this school!”

“W-what?” The girl with the dark braids clutches at her forehead.

“You heard me! But there’s nothing to worry about. This school’s budget is incredible! You’ll be living quite comfortably — you punks won’t want for anything, I can promise!”

Several students attempt to speak at once, effectively drowning one another out. Mukuro’s voice is among those adding to the clamor, but Junko isn’t paying attention to her words. She stares, transfixed, at the plush bear on the podium, her heart racing.

Live in Hope’s Peak forever? She can hardly process the thought.

“…just a joke, right?” Mukuro clutches at Junko’s arm as she says this, fingernails digging deep, and Junko lets out a small gasp as the pain pulls her back to her senses.

“Not at all!” Monobear responds, his tone as cheerful as ever. “What, aren’t you bastards grateful? You’re going to be completely cut off from that nasty outside world you used to live in. Isn’t that good news? Aren’t you glad to have such a generous headmaster? You should all be beary pleased!” He giggles at his own pun. “Upupu!”

Naegi, who’s been practically silent the whole time, speaks up. “The steel plates over the windows… they’re there to keep us in? The metal bulkhead blocking the door to the outside?”

“Exactly! Even if you all stood by the same window and shouted, you know, no one would be able to hear you! Not like anyone would be listening for you punks. Upupupupu!”

A boy with a ridiculous pompadour — Junko is reasonably certain, judging by his leather jacket, that this is renowned motorcycle gang leader Mondo Oowada — interrupts Monobear’s laughter. “Shut the hell up! This fuckin’ joke has gone way too far! If you don’t stop it, I’ll…”

“Oh?” Monobear cocks his head to the side. “You’ll do what? And is what you’re planning on doing enough to get you out of here?” He claps his paws to his mouth, shoulders shaking as though with silent laughter.

“Then there is some way to get out?” A girl in gothic lolita twirls a strand of her hair thoughtfully around one finger.

“As this school’s headmaster, I’ve created a special rule for anyone who wants to leave!” Monobear rocks backward and forward, like a child restless with anticipation. “The rule is called ‘graduation’! I’d be happy to tell you all about it.”

“Do go on,” the blond boy says, adjusting his spectacles.

“If any one of you is to break the order of our communal lifestyle, that person, and that person alone, will be permitted to leave the school grounds!”

“And exactly what do you mean by that?” The blond boy’s tone is thick with annoyance, but Junko can clearly perceive the fear underneath it.

Monobear giggles again before replying.

“Killing another person.”

“Killing another person?” Naegi echoes.

“Beating, stabbing, clubbing, beheading, strangling, poisoning, slaughtering, voodoo…” Monobear illustrates each word in turn with crude gestures. “The method’s not important! It’s the outcome that matters! The more evil the crime, the better the results!”

For once, the room is completely silent following Monobear’s words.

“You know, thrusting kids with such great hope as you lot into such a despair-inducing situation…” Junko swears she can see a blush forming on the plush bear’s cheeks. “It’s beary exciting!”

“Wait, what did it just say?” The speaker is a redheaded boy whom Junko doesn’t recognize. “We’re supposed to kill each other if we want to leave? Kill as in, like… murder?”

“I’d be happy to provide a dictionary!” Monobear says gleefully.

“How long are you gonna keep this up for?” This speaker is also unfamiliar to Junko; she’d certainly be aware of having seen someone with such an absurd afro before. “You caught us all by surprise, dude, but the prank’s over now, ‘right?”

“Oh, I assure you,” the bear says, and there’s a steely undertone to his voice that sends shivers creeping down Junko’s back, “this isn’t a prank. How thick-headed are you people? I’ve explained this all thoroughly, and yet it seems you’re still confused. Let me lay it out for you.” He pauses, as though for dramatic effect. “All of you bastards are to live in this school indefinitely — unless, of course, you’re willing to kill someone to get out!”

“That’s it!” Oowada smacks his right fist into the palm of his left hand threateningly, advancing toward the podium. “I’ve had it with your bullshit! Stop fucking with us!”

“Oowada-kun, don’t touch it!” Naegi says sharply. “It could be dangerous!”

Oowada rounds on Naegi. “You trying to tell me what I can and can’t do, small fry?”

“Our classmate may be right,” rumbles Oogami, the wrestler. “We do not know what this opponent is capable of.”

“Naegi-kun’s probably right,” Mukuro says, trying to keep her voice steady. “Didn’t any of you see the guns mounted by the entrance? Whoever’s behind this, they clearly aren’t above trying to hurt us.”

“Or even kill us!” Junko adds.

Oogami stands squarely in front of Oowada, blocking his path towards Monobear.

“Excellent deductions!” Monobear claps his paws together in mock applause. “You’re absolutely correct! Disobedient students will be punished, and this isn’t any ordinary punishment we’re talking about, either!”

A few shocked murmurs, not to mention a frustrated grunt from Oowada, follow his words.

“Before I call this ceremony to an end,” Monobear continues, “I’d like to give you all a gift! Something to commemorate your arrival at this school, and to serve you in your time here at Hope’s Peak Academy! That is… for the rest of your lives, however short they may be!”

He produces a slim, black object from somewhere behind him, holding it high above his head.

“This is an Electronic Student ID card! It has many functions, which I’m sure you’ll all find useful! Each one of them is customized with your name and student data. Oh, and by the way — it’s completely waterproof! Withstands up to ten tons of pressure! It’s a miracle of modern engineering!”

The device looks something like a smartphone, and is about the right size to fit into a pocket. Were her mind not otherwise preoccupied, Junko might be mentally commending it on its sleek, fashionable design.

“Most importantly, your Electronic Student ID cards contain a list of school rules! I suggest you all read them carefully and commit them to memory. Violations of school rules will not be taken lightly!” Monobear giggles. “Offenders run the risk of gruesome punishment! Upupupu! And, with that—” his tone switches to one of mock formality, and he bows “—I welcome each and every one of you to Hope’s Peak Academy!”

Before anyone has time to react, the stuffed bear is gone.

-

“Everyone, please keep calm.”

The speaker is the purple-haired, dark-jacketed girl Mukuro had referred to earlier. To Junko, she is another unfamiliar face. Her eyes are the same pale shade of lilac as her hair, and her expression is impassive. From all outward appearances, at least, this girl is having no difficulty keeping calm herself.

“Let’s go over what we know,” she continues, her voice quiet and even. The others have fallen silent, listening to her; fascinating how easily they defer to a leader, Junko thinks.

“We’ve been presented with two options. First, we can all live peacefully in this school for an indefinite period of time. And second…”

“Kill another student to get out,” Junko finishes.

“But there’s no way…” Fujisaki, the timid programmer, is clearly on the verge of tears. “There’s no way any one of us could do that. Right?”

“We cannot discount that possibility,” the girl in the dark jacket says.

“Of course we can’t.” The tall, blond boy smirks and brushes his bangs out of his eyes.

“Who’s he?” Junko whispers loudly.

“Byakuya Togami, heir to the Togami conglomerate,” Naegi whispers back.

“What do you mean?” Yamada protests, pointing nervously at Fujisaki. “She’s right! None of us could ever kill another student, could they?”

“That plush toy was obviously lying about many things!” Ishimaru tries, and fails, to sound as authoritative as usual. “He was clearly lying about being the headmaster! He must also have been lying about this ‘graduation’ rule!”

“Ishimaru-kun,” the purple-haired girl says, “you’re misunderstanding the nature of the problem. It’s not whether or not Monobear intends to keep up his end of the deal that we should be worrying about, it’s—”

Togami cuts her off. “The problem is that, regardless of whether or not the stuffed bear was lying, someone among us may have taken it seriously.”

The students all exchange nervous glances.

“This is…” Junko, speaking quietly, searches for the right phrase. “Despair-inducing! That’s it! There’s no way of knowing whether one of us believed Monobear or not! It’s unsolvable!"